Because I was not planning on writing a report because of all the things I have to do this week I made no specific notes outside life-totals and duressed hands. As I’m sitting behind my computer now, I think it was just too cool to not write a report so here we go. If I made any mistakes or whatsoever, feel free to correct me. I did my best to describe the events as accurately as I could.
While I was in Chicago for the Legacy Grand Prix one of the persons I met in real life was Soly. We talked a lot about the deck we both like (and we almost seem to be like the only two that do): GWSx, Dark Confidant fueled combo.
In the first half of 2008 we had a lot of PM’s going back and forth discussing the deck, leading to some good finishes for him and a top 8 finish for me in the 3rd edition of The Dutch Vintage Tournaments (my report can be found here:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36095.0). In the fall of 2008 we talked about redesigning the deck for the metagame at the time. Again we discussed a lot and made a new version. I did not play the build at that time because I wanted to play with the Artifact Aggro deck Harlequin had created, but I believe Soly once more successfully piloted the deck then.
The past two weeks I spent a lot of time preparing for this event, still having to choose between three decks: GWSx, Shaymora or a Bomberman-Tezzeret hybrid. The inevitable happened: a week ago I decided to pick up GWSx again, stimulated by Soly’s recent 1st place finish (report can be found here:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37590.0). For the third time, now aided by AIM, we heavily discussed and tweaked the deck resulting in the following list:
// Lands
3 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Swamp
1 Island
// Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
// Spells
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Mind's Desire
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Necropotence
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Rebuild
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Duress
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Thoughtseize
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Bayou
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 2 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
The deck is a house to play. Next to the fact that I simply love playing with Confidant, the guy gives you so much card advantage it just wins games. It also makes the deck way more consistent, resulting in less mulligans.
The sideboard is tuned to compete in a meta with a lot of Drains, Workshops and Ichorid, just the meta I expected for this tournament.
In testing I consistently beat Ichorid post-board and had an even to favorable matchup against Shops, depending on the die-roll and the skill of the Shop player. The deck steamrolls over other non-blue decks and has an even to favorable postboard Drain matchup, because of the combination of Xantid Swarm and Dark Confidant.
On to the actual events of this weekend. On Saturday when I was shopping I put on a shirt and when I looked in the mirror I noticed it said Vintage on the chest, awesome, especially with the fact in mind that Marius (Marske) told he would do some video coverage of the event. I buy the shirt and put it on on Sunday.
Sundays I pick up Guus (Mantis) and Alex for the 1,5 hour drive to Breda. We arrive at the site and meet with the rest of the community, by now almost all familiar faces. When we are seated for decklist collection we are told 60 people have gathered to fight for the still-to-be-determined Mox. A new record for The Dutch Vintage tournaments, congratulations to the organizers for another successful edition!
Round 1: Christophe Bolsius with Oath; 2-0When we greet each other he aks me if I am the Duncan from the fora. I ask him which fora and he names a few, TMD being one of them. I confirm and he seems somewhat intimidated to be playing such a good player, as he calls me. Apparently I making a name in the Dutch Magic community
. Thanks for the props Christophe!
He wins the die roll and opens with a delta into Sea and Thoughtseize. He takes my duress and leaves the Confidant in my hand. He plays a Lotus and passes. I suspect he has a Mana Drain ambush prepared for me so I play Top instead of Confidant, hoping to dig into another Duress-effect. He plays a land and passes the turn. I top, draw a card and pass the turn. He plays a Pithing Needle naming top and passes back. I draw a ritual and decide to go for it casting two Confidants. To my surprise both resolve. Looks like he has had some bad draws. I swing twice with both Confidants, Duress him and combo him out with all the extra cards I drew.
-1 Swamp, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Vampiric Tutor, -1 Lion’s Eye Diamond, -1 Ill-Gotten Gains, -1 Rebuild
+1 Bayou, +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Hurkyl’s RecallI didn’t see any win-conditions game 1, but I suspect he is playing Tezzeret. Imagine my surprise when he leads with a turn 1 Time Walk followed by a turn 2 Oath of Druids off an Forbidden Orchard. Since he’s already going to Oath and has the Orchard I cast a Confidant to get me more cards within the time I’m given. It resolves and he oaths up Progenitus. Knowing the go-to-10-life-angel will come next turn I have to draw something good to combo out. Confidant reveals a Brainstorm which I use during my mainphase. The third card I see is Desire. I get to cast it for with three extra copies and reveal Black Lotus, Demonic Tutor, Bayou and Cabal Ritual. I play the Lotus and crack it for black, playing the Duress I still had in hand. He reveals Force and another card. Apparently he didn’t see the Desire coming because he did not counter one of my pre-Desire rituals. I take the Force and Demonic for Yawgmoth’s Will. I now have threshold and play the Cabal Ritual. You can imagine what happened next when I tell you the remaining card in my hand was Tendrils of Agony.
Round 2: Remco van Stein Callenfels with Tezzeret (with Confidants); 2-0He lays down a turn 2 Confidant and I do the same. We both do nothing spectacular for a few turns until he reveals a Tinker and brings a Colossus into play. I have to act quick now and go for it on my turn. Because of the cards I have seen so far, I think he is playing some version of Smmenens GAT deck. Therefore I play around Stifle (don’t know if he plays it, but I feared it) when going off. When I duress him after Yawgmoth’s Will I see the coast is clear and I Tendrils him for 9+ storm.
-1 Swamp, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Vampiric Tutor, -1 Lion’s Eye Diamond, -1 Ill-Gotten Gains, -1 Rebuild
+1 Bayou, +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Hurkyl’s RecallHe has a busted opening of Island, Jet, Voltaic Key, Lotus into Tinker. I am mentally preparing myself to go to game three (sacrificing Jet getting Vault leaves one mana open to untap it and ‘win’ on the spot) as he announces to sacrifice his Key. He gets a Colossus and passes the turn with two cards in his hand. I lay down a land and a mox and cast Hurkyl’s Recall targeting him. Appears his last two cards were Force of Will and a blue card. We laugh about how good his hand his and joke that his draw for the turn must be Time Walk. Gladly it is not, he swings for 11 and passes. I have to go all in with Timetwister this turn. He draws no counters and I draw enough gas to combo him out via Yawgmoth’s Will. I point him at his huge mistake and he looks at me with disbelief. Apparently he had Tinkered for Colossus so many times in his Magic career it has become an automatism to go for the Iron Man.
Round 3: Steffen van de Veen with Tezzeret; 2-0I win the die-roll and open with both Dark Confidant and Necropotence paying 7 life. The cards turn out not to be as good as I wanted so I can’t kill him next turn. He opens with some mana and a Thirst for Knowledge. I swing for two and duress him. I take his Tinker and leave him with Demonic Tutor, Fire/Ice, Pyroblast and Regrowth, and no black or green mana, then I pay 4 more life, going to 6. He takes 3 damage from his Mana Crypt and taps all but a Mox Ruby to do a desperate maindeck Gifts Ungiven for Black Lotus, Mana Drain, Force of Will and Misdirection. I give him Drain and Misdirection. Now I know his exact hand and he can only cast Pyroblast to stop me. I combo him out using only black cards after flipping Ancestral with Bob.
-1 Swamp, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Vampiric Tutor, -1 Lion’s Eye Diamond, -1 Ill-Gotten Gains, -1 Rebuild
+1 Bayou, +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Hurkyl’s RecallI play a Confidant on my first turn. He answers with an Ethersworn Canonist, after which I Duress him. I see he has not much gas and I sculpt a good hand while we both go into beatdown mode. He can’t block the Confidant, because then I’ll combo him. I minimize the Bob-damage with a Sensei’s Top. After some damage I put the Top on top of my library and recast it, followed by Empty the Warrens. He counters one copy, but I still get 2 Goblins to inflict more damage. Two turns later I play Mox Jet and finish him with a Tendrils for 4 life. This game was a clear example why I believe Confidant is good in Storm Combo. I could not have won this game without him.
Round 4: Guus de Waard with Mono R Shop Aggro; 2-0Unfortunately I got paired against my buddy Guus this round. We were both on fire, but now one (or both) of our winning streaks has to end. We debate for a while what we should do. Drawing would mean we are both at ten points with two rounds to go. So winning one of those rounds will get us into top 8 likely. But, since we are close to 64 people, we are not guaranteed to make top 8 with 13 points we believe. We agree to play it out and split our prizes in case the loser of this match does not make top 8. This way we are sure one of us gets in.
I win the die roll and elect to play. I have a busted opening of both Confidant and Necropotence. I pay 7 life, going to 10 cards and go to my discard phase. I discard Desire, Time Walk and Timetwister, because I did not drew a blue manasource. He has a mediocre hand he should have probably mulliganned and only plays a top. I mini-Tendrils him for 10 life and draw 8 more cards with Necropotence. Next turn I go lethal.
-1 Mind’s Desire, -1 Tendrils of Agony, -1 Cabal Ritual
+1 Island, +1 Hurkyl’s Recall, +1 RebuildGuus mulligans and starts with a Welder. I open with Thoughtseize off a Ritual. I take the Sphere of Resistance he is holding. Next turn he plays his Thorn of Amethyst and welds it out for Sphere of Resistance, hoping to deny me playing Confidant. However, I lay down my mana crypt with my one land and play my Confidant with the other and the crypt. It will cost me life but I need to keep hitting land drops to prevent me from getting locked down under sphere effects. I attack him three times with confidant, while he lays a mox and welds in his Thorn. Fortunately I manage to win three Crypt flips in a row here. When I’m at 8 life I lose the flip and reveal a Tendrils, going to 1. Fearing a Red Blast from his sideboard I bait with a Chain of Vapor on the Sphere. In case he Rebs I have enough mana to cast Hurkyl’s and combo out with Lotus and Will. He does not have the Reb, I cast Hurkyl’s and kill him.
Round 5: David Martinez with UGr Madness; IDWe are the only two players with twelve points so we draw intentionally. There could have been four of us, but one player dropped at 4-0 because he had to go to his mum’s birthday and the other match ended in a draw. I use the free time to check how Guus is doing. He is playing the mirror match. I’m confidant he will win, since he has got a great deal of experience with the deck. He did win, although topdecking two Triskelions in a row in the second game helped him a bit against a board of Viashino Heretic, Gorilla Shaman and double Goblin Welder.
Round 6: Carl Devos with Remora (with Confidants); IDWe both have thirteen points at this time so I get another intentional draw. I would have loved to play against Remora, because I tested it quite a bit beforehand and was eager to put that testing into practice in a tournament setting, but this was not the time for it. Maybe I would play him in the top 8, in which case I do not want to give away any information concerning my deck, and otherwise it would have been intense games, and I would be better off saving my energy for later. I use my time to watch the other players competing for top 8.
After the round is finished final standings are posted. I am second seed with 14 points, which means I have to play against the only fish deck, a deck designed to beat combo, in the top 8.
Top 8: Johan Steurs with BUG Fish; 2-0As we sit down, we are told our match is the one they are going to feature. We are of course ok with that, so Marske is going to sit next to our table and writes down the details of our match on his laptop. He’ll be posting them later this week hopefully.
Me & Johan preparing for the match.He wins the die-roll and leads with a Duress. I reveal my hand which contains Confidant, Ill-Gotten Gains, Duress, Land, Mox and two other cards. He takes the IGG, which is ok by me, since I think the card is less powerful against opponents playing blue. Because he did not remove my mox I get to land a turn one Confidant which resolves. He drops a Null Rod shortly thereafter. I Duress him seeing double Negate, Goyf, Brainstorm and Stifle. I take his Stifle and wait for my window to combo out. This comes when he plays a Mox Ruby and his third land and lays down a Goyf, tapping two lands. I cast Cabal Ritual on my turn. He tries to Negate and I point him at his own Null Rod. Unable to counter my spells I combo him out easily after Hurkyl’s Recalling his Null Rod.
-1 Tendrils of Agony, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Vampiric Tutor, -1 Lion’s Eye Diamond, -1 Ill-Gotten Gains, -1 Cabal Ritual
+1 Island, +1 Bayou, +1 Hurkyl’s Recall, +2 Xantid Swarm, +1 Empty the WarrensI boarded in the extra lands because of the mana denial he plays. As always I board out LED and IGG against a deck playing blue, just like the topdeck-tutors. I also board out the 3rd Tendrils of Agony, since I don’t to diminish the chances of getting a duressed Tendrils Extirpated (I saw him play the card earlier that day). Because of that possibility, I board in the Empty the Warrens as an extra win-condition.
He again leads with a Duress, taking Ancestral, but he can’t prevent me from resolving a Xantid Swarm on my turn. He draws his card for the turn, and fortunately for me he misses his second land drop and has to pass the turn. I attack with Swarm and Duress him seeing Stifle, Negate, Null Rod, double Goyf and Confidant. I take Null Rod, since his counterspells can’t hurt me anymore. He does not draw a land, plays a Cursecatcher and has to pass the turn again. I draw a Demonic Tutor. I think for a while if I will play it and if so what I should search for. I opt not to. He passes again and then I realize my best line of play is to Demonic for Confidant and ride his card advantage to victory. So I follow that line of play a turn later than I could have done. He draws a land and lays down a creature. I cast ritual and Timetwister with one black floating. I don’t get any more rituals, but I do get a Thoughtseize, which reveals his hand of 3x Force, Confidant, Goyf and Negate. I take the confidant. Apparently he topdecked a tutor which he immediately uses. I know he’s going for the Darkblast to get rid of my Swarm, but he does not have the mana to play it this turn. Now I know I have to combo out this very turn. With the help of some rituals I get to eight mana and cast a Tendrils with Storm 5. He sacrifices his Cursecatcher and I let one copy get countered. With the remaining four mana I cast another Tendrils and it’s on to the semi’s.
Sidenote: Until now I have not lost a single game, which I think is truly amazing.
Top 4: David Martinez with UGr Madness; 2-1Although I would like to match my strength with Carl playing the Remora deck, who also made top 4, I must admit I am happy to get paired against Madness. I think this is my best matchup of the three remaining decks, although I never tested against it (obviously).
He wins the die-roll and I have to mulligan, not a very good start. I do manage to land an early Confidant. To my disliking, he Mysticals for Firestorm on his upkeep to get rid of it. On the other hand, this might have given me the bit of tempo I needed to get back in the game. He lays down his beaters a turn later and does not draw a Bazaar, so he is not super explosive. I draw some rituals and combo out with Ill-Gotten Gains after Duressing him.
-1 Tendrils of Agony, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Vampiric Tutor, -1 Lion’s Eye Diamond, -1 Ill-Gotten Gains, -1 Cabal Ritual
+1 Island, +1 Bayou, +1 Hurkyl’s Recall, +2 Xantid Swarm, +1 Empty the WarrensSince he played Null Rod and I expected some Forces next to his Circular Logics, I boarded the same as I did against Fish.
Game 2 was a blowout. He opened with Bazaar while a had a mediocre, but keepable hand. I draw nothing good and have to play Timetwister with 5(!) cards still in hand. At least I reset his Tarmogoyf. My deck shows no compassion however and the 7 fresh cards are als not very good. He beats me down quickly thereafter.
Game 3 is the opposite of game 2, although I have to take another mulligan. I play an Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens on turn 2 and he is left with no answer. He told me afterwards his opening hand had 2 Bazaar in it, which is ok, but he drew another one for the turn, so he had just bazaars and no business this game.
Steffen and I agree to split the prize before we play it out for the honor, the extra bye for Bazaar of Moxen and of course the TMD Vintage Ranking points. We work out a construction where I get the Mox (Pearl), my 5th piece of power
.
Finals: Steffen van de Veen with Tezzeret; 0-2This match has also been taken on video, although this was one of the least interesting matches I played during the tournament. As good as it went in the swiss when I played him, as bad it went in the finals. Anyway, it’s always nice to see some video coverage!
First game I have to mulligan and keep a mediocre hand. He wins the die roll and opens with Ancestral Recall. After this it’s just a formality, he has a lot of card advantage and counters everything I try to cast. He wins without much resistance from my side.
-1 Swamp, -1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Vampiric Tutor, -1 Lion’s Eye Diamond, -1 Ill-Gotten Gains, -1 Rebuild
+1 Bayou, +3 Xantid Swarm, +1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Hurkyl’s RecallGame 2 I put up some more of a fight, although I made a bad call not to mulligan. I thought the fetchland I had in hand (Flooded Strand) was a Delta and thus able to fetch my Badlands to cast the Wheel of Fortune I had in hand. I duress him and he opens with an Ethersworn Canonist. I try to Chain of Vapor it, but it gets Pyroblasted. Then I try to Hurkyl’s Recall it, but it gets countered again. Then I draw another fetchland and cast Wheel of Fortune, but my new hand is not very spectacular. After that I manage to push through a Timetwister to take my last chance to make something out of this game, but I draw dead and he has the Tinker to back up the Voltaic Key he already had on the table.
Congrats to Steffen for winning the tournament!
I had a great time and the deck performed really well all day long, despite the less good draw7’s in the finals. I had my fair share of luck and you can’t always win. The deck is a house and I truly believe this is the best version of combo you can play these days. I’d be happy to answer any questions regarding the deck, my boarding decisions, or general strategies.
Props to:
Dark Confidant, for being awesome.
Arjan and Marius, for holding yet another great tournament.
My opponents, for the fun but competitive games.
My deck, for winning 11 games in a row.
Thanks for reading!
Duncan
PS. Because of some circumstances I was not able to write a report about my adventures at the Grand Prix: Chicago and the side-event. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone I met there for the awesome time I had. In particular Soly, for hanging out and talking about GWSx; Smmenen and Demars, for the hilarious testing game; Fuckin’ Lou for being a registered sex offender; Brassman for hanging out and making top 2 and Rich Shay for being one of the nicest magic players I’ve ever met. And of course the rest of the guys that I met and the ones who signed my souvenir!
